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Meet Bass Tech, Chris Brandt
Chris Brandt has been my bass tech for well over a decade. His knowledge
and skills as a tech are second to none, but he also has limitless insight into
the continued development of this instrument, and I believe his concepts will
provide great food for thought for any player.
Jake Kot, Editor
Meet Bass Tech, Chris Brandt
Back in 1963, when I was in the 7th grade, my love affair with the guitar was already in full bloom and I increasingly found myself drawn to the electric guitar. I was attracted to its mysterious power but I had never actually played one and for me at the time, the electric guitar seemed to have a sort of taboo around it. I’d been loyally reading Sing Out magazine because I dug the folk scene and back then there seemed to be a prejudice against the electric guitar. Back then the electric guitar was not as universally accepted as it is to day as Bob Dylan had a chance to when he first played his Strat at the Newport folk festival in19?? And so many people got upset. Well, I didn’t have money to buy one so when I was in the eighth grade, I made one . I copied a Mostrite because I liked the heavily sculpted body. A local music store had a real one and I went back over and over again so I could study every detail. It was the only way I could figure out how to make one. There was no teaching material at that time and there was no one to answer my questions. It came out very well and a few years later in spite of my age it helped me get a job as a repairman. I’ve been working on guitars and basses ever since. Now I’m in my mid 50s and I’ve been lucky enough to see the incredible evolution of the electric bass, which has arguably gone through more reinvention then the electric guitar.
The bass player today is now in an unprecedented environment of choices. The efforts and creativity of so many people have shaped the bass world light years beyond its early beginnings. Wood, graphite fiber, plastics, metals, finish materials, passive pickups, active pickups, even pizzo, synth, and photo optical systems, not to mention different bridges, gears, and control systems are all part of the scene and it can make your head swim. So many tantalizing possibilities.
The Twelfth Fret is the shop I own devoted entirely to craftsmanship and I love it when I can help someone get to where they are trying to go. Whether a job is little or large it almost always involves collaboration. Even for a straight forward set up I want to know about the person’s playing style, goals for their action and of course the kind of strings they will use. Collaboration is a core part of my work, and collaboration between players and builder/designers has always been where the rubber meets the road. The totally remarkable evolution of electric instruments always resulted from this and still does. I’ve watched many, many musicians first come into my shop and soon discover to what a great extent luthiery can add to their own quest to be better players. And I’ve also seen over and over again that figuring out how to help a player is what helps a luthier become a better luthier. I’ve spent years collaborating with many players. It is all worthy of a great deal of observation and thought, from designs, use of materials, the effects of stress and wear, adjustment issues, repair issues, and customizing. It is a world unto itself, and grows larger and more interesting the more one learns.
This is my first venture writing a column and I hope to do so in the same spirit of collaboration which so often seems to bring out the very best. I plan to explore what makes the electric bass the truly remarkable instrument that it is. As a part of this exploration, I would like to throw open a question to you, the reader. I am eager to see what comes back from this question and I look forward to incorporating it into the next article. So here goes…….
A magnetic pickup on an electric bass (or guitar) can not hear wood resonance yet if you plug it in and stand back and listen you CAN hear wood resonance. How does the pickup do it?
Send me your best answer and until the next article….SAY TUNED!
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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